Knowledge transfer

Maintenance and servicing of facilities

Construction projects that involve the installation of wells, for example, always go hand in hand with training in how to use and maintain the facilities.

This may sound obvious, but unfortunately it was not always the case in development projects for a long time. All too often, well-intentioned projects have a short lifespan because the knowledge of how to maintain and repair the facilities beyond the end of the project is not imparted in parallel.

To avoid such scenarios, water committees are traditionally set up in our projects, in which locals take responsibility for the functionality and correct use of the facilities.

Education for women and girls

The Water Foundation takes several important measures to facilitate access to education for women in developing countries. By providing clean water near the villages, the time that women and girls have to spend fetching water is significantly reduced. They can use this saved time for educational activities instead.

The foundation supports women in setting up self-help groups. In training courses, they learn basic skills for generating their own income (manufacturing sustainable cooking stoves, growing fruit and vegetables, and animal husbandry).

We also promote the participation of women in decision-making on water and sanitation in their communities by ensuring equal representation of women and men in water committees. This strengthens their position and enables them to articulate the specific needs of women and girls. For example, we advocate for the teaching of menstrual hygiene management skills, which enables girls to manage their menstruation with confidence and reduces absenteeism from school.

Resource use and ecological relationships

Providing access to water and ensuring the long-term functionality of the water supply is only the first step towards improvement. It is equally important to impart knowledge about how to use resources sustainably. For example, when it comes to watering gardens in the most economical way possible or protecting other natural resources such as forests. Often, short-term interests such as generating income through deforestation conflict with long-term goals such as ensuring good soil and water quality through healthy forests. Training in this area serves to educate people about the long-term relationships between human activity and the environment and promotes an intrinsic interest in managing resources sustainably.

Hygiene and health

Diseases transmitted by contaminated water are among the leading causes of death worldwide. Typhoid fever, cholera and other diarrheal diseases mainly affect children. This is not only due to the availability of clean water, but also to a lack of knowledge about the connections between water, hygiene and health risks. Training in WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) is therefore an important part of our projects. In particular, we focus on working with children, teaching them not only knowledge but also specific practices, such as how to wash their hands properly.